“A House by the Sea” by P.H. Lee was written as a response to Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” I found that the texts this week were challenging, in that besides the WMST literature class I took, I cannot remember the last time I read fiction for a class, and I was surprised how challenging I found it to be. I found myself questioning whether I fully understood what was going on because fiction tends to have many metaphors and ideas that are to be interpreted rather than explicitly stated.
I agree with Lee, that they must live outside of society where they are not actively seen rather than the middle of the city. I was intrigued by the way she described imagining if they did live in the middle of a city “perhaps you’re on your way to an orgy or debate or to watch television” in such a casual way. It is true that if you saw the children on your way to one of these activities/hobbies, you would not enjoy them fully and that is not a utopia.
The more I read about the house by the sea with these people inside, the more stressed I began to feel. Thinking more about how these people suffer for the sake of utopia makes me think about certain people in the world that suffered for the benefit of certain countries. Starving children who end up dying of “simple” and curable things such as diarrhea who knew nothing put pain because of colonialization and imperialism happens all the time. But they are far away and we don’t have to see them. If they were on campus on my way to class I am sure it would haunt me for years.